Not every highway project runs into multimillion-dollar cost overruns.

States including Arkansas, California, Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, Oregon and Texas have adopted many of the same best practices, according to a 2011 study commissioned by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

In those states, transportation officials spend more time analyzing costs and identifying potential risks.

They don't allow contractors with a record of delays or overruns on past work to bid on new jobs. And they monitor progress on projects and are prepared to stop payments if the work goes off track.

"No single state employs every good practice on the list," the study concluded. And there's nothing in federal law to make them.

It's common for costs to change after a major highway contract is awarded. Prices for fuel or construction materials fluctuate. Extreme weather causes delays and price increases. New ideas to improve projects sometimes add costs.

"Not every project we're going to know exactly how many pounds of steel or how many tons of rock it's going to take," said John Smythe, director of the Iowa Department of Transportation's construction office. "The plans are an estimate, and there's going to be some variability."

Some states consider any project coming in no more than 10 percent over budget to be a success.

A Gannett analysis of 21 federally funded highway projects found several examples of costs running much closer to the original contracts:

• Three bridge and interchange projects worth about $50 million along Interstate 10 in the Palm Springs, Calif., area are running about 1.6 percent over the initial price tag. The work is to be completed in 2012.

Communicating regularly and responding quickly when an issue arises are keys to sticking to cost estimates, said Hugh Smith, an engineering division manager with the Riverside County Transportation Department in Southern California.

"We develop a good relationship with the consultant and the contractor,'' Smith said. "If you have an adversarial relationship with the contractor, they'll be adversarial with you."

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• Nearly $200 million in separate projects to build a new four-lane, 15-mile highway through cactus-studded hills on the northwest edge of Phoenix came in only 1.25 percent over the construction budget. A heavy winter storm led to more than half of that extra $2.1 million.

A cost overrun of more than 5 percent is "almost unheard of" on projects in the Phoenix metroarea worth more than $50 million, Deputy State Engineer Rob Samour said.

• A three-year project in South Salem, Ore., to replace seven bridges, repair another bridge and widen Interstate 5, a major corridor from Washington state to California, was completed in 2008, with delays kept to 85 days. The project ran 4.5 percent over budget.

Jeff Gower, state construction and materials engineer with the Oregon Department of Transportation, said nearly half of the $2.8 million overrun was caused by fuel-cost increases. Of the 19 highway projects on I-5 in the Salem area in the past 15 years, only three others were over budget.

"We have multiple layers that must approve any significant cost overruns before those expenses are incurred," Gower said.

• A $50 million stimulus project in suburban Detroit to repair and replace 12 miles of eight-lane Telegraph Road came in about 4.7 percent over budget. That was partly due to $1 million-plus in early-finish incentives and $360,000 to move an unexpectedly shallow sewer main.

The Michigan Department of Transportation regularly tracks costs with a software system that monitors expenses in real time and via monthly reports to the state transportation commission. In 2010, transportation projects statewide averaged about 1.5 percent over bid amounts.

"The system of checks and balances works," Michigan transportation spokesman Rob Morosi said.

• Work on a 7.7-mile, $32 million bypass around Paynesville, Minn., is about 90 percent complete and is less than 1 percent over budget.

• A $38.4 million venture to widen a bridge over the Fox River and improve 5.5 miles of Wisconsin 172, a major east-west artery connecting U.S. 41 and Interstate 43 near Green Bay, had 40 change orders that added about 4 percent to the budgeted cost.

"If the contractor finds something that's innovative, we split the savings," he said.

For the majority of projects that fall under the $500 million "major project" level, the Federal Highway Administration doesn't track or provide data on cost overruns, leaving that to states.

Experts say the federal government could keep better tabs on the billions it sends to states for highway construction if it bolstered staffing, linked funding to performance and required states to follow best practices.

Kenneth Mead, a former inspector general with the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration's parent agency, said efficiency could be improved without federal officials scrutinizing every single project.

They could review about two dozen of the nation's largest projects, measuring cost, scheduling, risk and other factors, then use the findings to create a baseline of performance standards, he said.

One idea getting attention on Capitol Hill is a proposal to link future federal dollars to how well states perform.

Stacey Barchenger of the Salem (Ore.) Statesman Journal; Kathleen Gray and Matt Helms of the Detroit Free Press; Doug Schneider of the Green Bay (Wis.) Press-Gazette; Sean Holstege of The Arizona Republic; and Mark Sommerhauser of the St. Cloud (Minn.) Times contributed to this report.